Sunday, 17 July 2016

ISIS releases propaganda film showing methods for carrying out terror attacks in Britain, Europe, the US

The hated terror group published the horrifying film, calling on European jihadis to “fill their cars with gas”, weeks before gunman Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel used a lorry to mow day Bastille Day crowds in France.

In the propaganda clip the Islamist fanatics suggest various methods for carrying out terror attacks in Britain, Europe, the US and Australia alongside detailed descriptions of the carnage they could cause.

Amongst the sick scenes depicted are a sniper attack in London, a suicide vest bombing in New York, activating a German sleeper cell and a driver using a 4x4 to run over crowds in Australia.

ISIS has repeatedly advocated the use of vehicles in terrorist attacks and regularly uses cars and trucks to carry out mass bombings and attacks in the Middle East.

This week that terrifying tactic reached Europe when 31-year-old Tunisian mantilla Bouhlel went on the rampage in Nice, driving an articulated truck into packed crowds watching a fireworks display on the Promenade des Anglais.

Today ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack, calling the jihadi a “soldier of the Caliphate” and insisting he had been inspired by its call to arms against “crusader” nations.

The terror group has urged its followers in Europe to target civilians in nations which are part of a US-led coalition carrying out bombing in Syria and Iraq, which includes Britain and France.

It is not known whether Bouhlel had seen ISIS propaganda videos such as this one before carrying out the attack or whether he pledged allegiance to the group’s reclusive leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

The film, examined by the International Centre for the Study of Violent Extremism (ICSVE), was released by to followers via the jihadi group’s online media channels.

In one scene it depicts an ISIS soldier in Australia readying to run down civilians with an SUV, ordering followers to “fill your cars with gas”.

Elsewhere the footage shows a truck laden with explosives, alongside images of US soldiers being beheaded by jihadi militants.

The video, released during Ramadan, will heighten fears that ISIS is attempting to inspire more ‘lone wolf’ extremists already living in Europe to carry out evil terror attacks.

Its mention of vehicles will prove particularly worrying to security services as atrocities such as the Nice slaughter require little organisation such as the procurement of guns and explosives, and so are harder to predict.

The video is not the first time ISIS has advocated the use of vehicles in such a way. In a 2014 propaganda video, the group's official spokesperson Mohammed al-Adani ordered followers to slaughtered civilians by any means possible, suggesting they might “run them over with your car”.

He said: “Kill them in any manner or way however it may be. Smash his head with a rock, or slaughter him with a knife or run him over with your car or throw him down from a high place or choke him or poison him.”

ISIS is increasingly turning to terror attacks abroad as it loses more and more territory in its Syrian and Iraqi heartlands, with the so-called Caliphate declared two years ago crumbling under advances by Government forces and Kurdish Peshmerga.